Ramen by the numbers · Price
What a bowl costs
In dollars, London is the most expensive of our 17 cities and Brazil the least. Count it in hours of minimum-wage work and the picture turns upside down.
In dollars
London pays 2.4× Brazil
Google asks reviewers how much they spent per person, as a range such as €10–20. Across 12,133 of those answers for ramen houses in our 17 cities, a night of ramen costs about ≈US$25 in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, about ≈US$21 in Sydney and Melbourne and about ≈US$17 in Paris, Madrid and Barcelona. São Paulo, Curitiba and Belo Horizonte sit at about ≈US$14. London stands alone at ≈US$33, 2.4 times the Brazilian figure.
This is the whole bill, not the menu price of one bowl: a beer, an extra egg or a plate of gyoza all count. If you're planning a trip, read these as a budget per person, not a promise.
Why so many ties? Google records spend as ranges. We take each range's midpoint and the median per city, so 17 cities land on just 9 values. Local currency next to each city.
See as a table
In hours of work
Brazil pays the most hours
Dollars tell a traveler's story. Hours of work tell a local one. We divided each city's typical spend by the hourly minimum wage in force in October 2026. In Sydney and Melbourne, a night of ramen costs 1.1 h of minimum-wage work. In London, 2.0 h. In São Paulo, Curitiba and Belo Horizonte, 9.5 h, and in Mexico City 8.9 h.
So the least expensive ramen in dollars is the most expensive in work time. At the Brazilian minimum wage, one ramen night takes more than a full working day. In Australia, Canada and the US cities, it's closer to an hour and a half or less.
Left: cities ordered by price in US dollars. Right: the same cities ordered by hours of minimum-wage work. Orange lines: Brazil and Mexico City. Singapore has no national minimum wage and is left out.
Wages, hours and sources
This is illustrative. Reviewers aren't necessarily minimum-wage earners, and we use the gross statutory minimum: city level in Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco, province level in Toronto and Vancouver, national elsewhere. Monthly minimums were converted to hours (220 h a month in Brazil, 173.3 h in Spain and Portugal, Portugal's 14 payments spread over 12 months). Prices are bracket medians from reviews written between 2019 and 2026.